Care4Conway: 4/4/10

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Karsten's Hospital Photos

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Karsten Michael Beckemeier is here!

Last night I was sent to Labor and Delivery by the oncall OB because the baby got overly active for a long period of time. By overly active, I mean frantic, struggling type movements--the likes of which I've never experienced in any of the three pregnancies. They put me on the monitor and it was reassuring to hear his little heart beating away. They noticed that I was contracting some, albeit very irregularly. During these contractions, his heart rate kept decelerating so they decided to keep me overnight. If it was better the rest of the night the plan was to send me home. If not, I'd be induced today. By 5:45 am the contractions had gotten regular to every 6 minutes or so. Then they stalled. My OB came in around 9am and said that his HR was continuing to decelerate so he didn't feel comfortable sending me home. I was only six days away from my due date anyway so he wanted to go ahead and get things going. Pitocin was started at 10am and I was dilated to 2cm and 70% effaced. At 1pm they broke the bag of waters and at 2pm I got an epidural. By this time I was at 4cm, contracting every 2 minutes and in active labor. The epidural took quite a while to help, at least 10 contractions. I rested for a bit and then a little after 5pm I was complete and ready to start pushing. They had me try a test push and quickly made me stop because it was apparent that I wouldn't need to push for long. They paged the doctor and he got there and they got the room set up. I took one push on the next contraction and out came our little 10 lb. 12 oz. bundle of joy. He looks more like a toddler, really! Since he came so quickly, they had to suction out his nose and mouth to help him get all the fluid out. The doctor commented on how his arm was tired from holding him for so long and guessed he be closer to 10 lbs than 9 like the other two were. They put him on my chest and he was soooooo purple. I immediately thought it was heart related but they explained that the cord was indeed wrapped around his neck so it would take a little while for his color to return. Plus, being so big, he's a bit bruised as well. He's the perfect baby so far and seems to be nursing like a pro already. I guess so, he's so big he's probably going to be starving all the time! His APGAR scores were 8 and 9.

Karsten's on his way!

We're at the hospital and contractions are about 2.5-3 minutes apart. Will update again with pics after he finally arrives!

Conway's Heart Story

Conway's Heart Story

Conway David Beckemeier was born on March 3, 2007. His heart defects went undetected during pregnancy and he was diagnosed at two days of age with L-TGA, a large VSD, sub pulmonic stenosis and Ebstein’s Anomaly. Just before turning six months of age, he underwent open heart surgery to reroute the bloodflow in his heart. Called the "double switch", this procedure is the most technically challenging for pediatric cardio-thoracic surgeons to perform. The version of the double switch that Conway received on 8/28/07 was called the Rastelli-Senning with VSD closure and sub pulmonic resection. He suffered a grand mal seizure following the surgery that lasted over an hour and had several other post-op setbacks including surgical heart block, which required another operation on 9/18/07 to insert a pacemaker. Following surgery and such a long hospital stay, Conway developed an oral aversion (he would not eat) and he was 100% NG tube fed for eight months. He also lost muscle tone and required both physical and occupational therapies. In April 2008, he had a cardiac cath and attempted balloon angioplasty on his pulmonary arteries that did not work. Although his recovery was very long, he had a solid year or so of being a "normal" kid . Then in May of 2009, it was discovered that Conway was having rhythm disturbances, specifically atrial flutter. His pacemaker allowed it to go undetected for several weeks until he showed signs of heart failure and was admitted to the ICU for a week to be placed on IV heart meds and undergo cardioversion on 5/6/09. He went home and his heart function started recovering when he had another episode of flutter (6/16/09). This time, he was again hospitalized and put on IV milrinone, but he converted back to normal sinus rhythm by himself. At that time he was placed on the anti-arrhythmia drug, amiodarone. On 7/22/09 he had to be cardioverted again for yet another episode of flutter. The following week, he got worse instead of better. His cardiologist did a full work up and it was determined that his aortic, mitral and tricuspid valves were all leaking worse and were felt to be the cause of his heart failure. On 8/24/09 he had a cardiac cath and attempted ablation. The electrophysiologist was unable to induce a single arrhythmia. Then, just two days later, he went into atrial flutter on his own. He was placed back in the cath lab where he underwent mapping and a total of 17 burns were made to try to knock out his arrhythmias for good. The next day, 8/27/09, he had his second open heart surgery to repair his mitral valve called ring annuloplasty. He also had a partial Maze procedure done. His surgeries are performed at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). This time he was discharged just six days later! His Left Ventricular function improved drastically. In December 2010 we noticed he began getting more winded during physical activity. A January 2011 cath showed that he is outgrowing his RV-PA gortex conduit, but he was not symptomatic enough to warrant intervention. In April 2012 Conway’s fatigue increased and an echo at the end of May revealed that the ratio between the right and left sided pressures has gotten too high and it is time to replace the homograft that was placed when he was five months old. He had a cardiac cath on 5/25/12 which confirmed the echo findings. He had surgery on 8/8/12 to replace his pulmonary valve and RV-PA conduit, add an additional pacing wire to his left ventricle, and change his generator to a bi-ventricular model which is shown to preserve function and help the heart muscle pump more efficiently/effectively.